Heaven's Gunna Wait (Mad/JJ)

J. J. Jones, lost to the world through a combination of magical, medical concoctions and her bodies own natural defenses, laid on the bed in the small hospital room. She fidget slightly in her sleep, mumbling restlessly as she always did when the potions wore off and what happened slowly began to seep back into her subconsious.

The wounds that had been on her skin when she had been apparated in by some Witch and Wizard who had found her out in the alley had been healed, but there was nothing, not even magic could do, for what had happened inside her mind. Those wounds were invisiable, but thanks to the laws of the universe, fundimentally worse than those that had been on her skin.

The room was quiet as a healers drifted in and out checking on the poor patient.

That however, was about to change.

"Out of the way, you bumbling imbecile!" Mad snapped at some poor mediwizard. An impatient wave of her hand caused an unspoken spell to move him from her path as she stormed into the room.

Mad Lewis was many things. She was cold, poised, collected, and exacting. Her ire, when it was raised, was often expressed through displeased frowns and biting words. At all times, Mad Lewis was, more or less, calm.

At the moment, however, she was clearly livid, her anger surrounding her like a cloud.

"You," she demanded of the first healer she set her sites upon, "are you the treating healer? Why was I only just contacted? How long has it been? Hours? You ought to have had someone contacting the girl's guardian, immediately. And don't bother feeding me some pathetic excuse.

"Mad Lewis, before you go through the bother of asking. Miss Jones is my apprentice. What happened to her?"

The healer, a young man of about the age of twenty-five, relatively new - but competant - to his position jumped at being adressed so.

He immedately began flipping through charts and papers that he had about, as much to look like he knew what he was doing, as to actually solve the problem.

"Miss Jones as been with us... it appears almost a day now. She had a distinct lack of identification upon arrival. It took as sometime to find proper records, to inform you. Pathetic or not, that is what has happened."

The healer cleared his throat as he looked at his files again, "We don't actually have any clear indications. She was brought to us by a young couple, found her of all things outside of a Muggle club. I'd say she was lucky to be found by our kind and not theirs.

"She was quite out of it by, mumbling about well, we had trouble understanding it ourselves. We thought it best to give her some strong sleeping potions to keep her calm. Miss Jones arms and legs were covered in what we believe to be stings, or bits. Quite painful actually. It looked like she ran into a den of fire ants, but in the middle of the city?"

The healer shook his head, and continued to look at his charts rather than the woman.
"There is one thing..." he looked up and added in a lower voice, "The couple who found her said that... well, there was another young girl there too, only well... she had sucomed to her injuries before anything could be done."

Mad, who appeared to have reigned in her temper, frowned at the information.

"I see," she stated, gaze moving to the girl, then back to the healer. "I will sit with her, now. I shall call for you if you are needed." The woman matched action to words, walking briskly across the ward and pulling a chair up beside J.J.'s bed.

And then, she sat, hands resting in her lap as she waited for the girl to waken.

J. J. twisted and turned, the minor fidgets that had started earlier growing much more fitful as more and more of the sleeping draft wore off and she slowly slipped back into consiousness.

Her mumbling became more frequent and after a few moments a tad more coherent.

"No. No, please," her voice soft, fitful, interupted here and there by whimpers, "Please make it stop."

After another whimper, she felt silent and still for another long moment. Almost like she had fallen back into deep sleep once more, only -

J. J. Jones awoke with a sudden start and a heartwrenching scream.

At some point between J.J. growing still and her waking with a scream, Mad had relocated to the edge of the girl's bed. Now, the woman was speaking to her, smoothing the hair back from her face. Her tone was different than any who currently knew her would associate with her.

It was gentle; soothing.

"Hush, child. It's alright. I'm here," Mad murmured.


"'ush, Calum. There, nigh - 'tis gran' so. Oi'm 'ere, Calum. Sister's 'ere..." A girl from more than fifty years past had uttered soothingly to a terrified little boy.


"There, lassie." A faint trace of an Irish accent bled into Mad's tone. "It's alright, J.J. I'm 'ere, now..."

It took J. J. a long moment to recognize the voice - to recognize anything really. She just nodded her head along with the words. It would be alright, it would be because, because...

She finally looked at the face in front of her and recognized it. Miss Mad was there.

J. J. could feel herself start to shake, but she took a staggaring breath, and wrapped her arms around herself trying to hold it in.

"W-W- I-I-" Where am I? was what she was trying to say or perhaps it was Where was Cecile or those girls or-or-or

There were so many things she was trying to say but none of them were coming out. All there was were a few halted sylables and some squeaks.

She felt her eyes go wide.

Why couldn't she talk?

Mad brought a hand up to lightly caress the girl's face.

"You are in St. Mungo's," she told her. "It would seem you have underdone a rather traumatic experience. For what is is worth, you are safe, now."

The woman pulled J.J. to her, embracing her gently.

'Oi 'ill in me rin' let anyone 'urt yer,' the girl of long ago had promised, holding the little boy tightly.

"I won't let anyone hurt you, again," Mad vowed. Someone had hurt her apprentice - she knew they had. Mad would make them pay.

St. Mungos, the name rang in the girls head for a moment as she tried to place why she knew it. Eventually her brain connected it to the muggle equivilant - Hospital. She was in the hospital.

Somehow that managed to make everything worse instead of better. She had never been in a hospital before - never needed too...

It she was here then...

She curled into the embrace, her mind too far gone from anything it use to be to question that this didn't appear to be the usual form of their relationship.

She nodded her head, and then shook it - not really sure what she was trying to say, she opened her mouth again, unsure about what was going to come out.

"I-I-It," she mamaged to get out shakily, barely audiable really, but she was thankful that at least something was coming out this time "
H-H-" Hurts? was that what she was going for? Or was it something else? There was too much in her brain, too much that she just didn't want...

Mad rubbed her hand soothingly along the girl's back, an action not nearly as forgotten as she had suspected. A frown pulled at her features at J.J.'s aborted attempts at speech.

"I wish to speak with the healer," she said, voice only slightly louder than necessary. If they had any idea who she was, there would be little need for her to shout.

The woman didn't bother to pull away from embracing the girl when the healer made a reappearance. "She cannot speak," Mad informed him, tone quiet so as not to upset the girl. "I want to know whether it is psychological trauma or if there has been damage to her ability to speak."

J. J. closed her eyes and started to breath deeply, in and out, pushing away any thoughts she didn't need, that she did not want.

She could still hear Ms. Mad speak, but seeing as she was not speaking to her, were not nosense words of soothing, she tuned them out making them just nonesence words.

The healer walked over to the girl upon this news. It was something they had been suspecting, from her behaviour upon being emited, but had no conformation, for until this moment the girl had hardly been awake.

"There has been no evidence that what happened to her should have any phsycial affect on her vocal cords," the man said pulling out his wand. After muttering a few simple spells - incatations that should have fixed anything sever or not that might have happened physically, he kindly asked the girl to speak.

J. J. straighed, and looked nervously between Ms. Mad and the man before openning her mouth.

"I-I-F-F-H," a few garbled sounds came out, something that might have been speach, but probably wasn't, and then nothing. After a moment she closed her mouth and shook her head, eyes whelling up slightly.

Nothing, it seemed, was planning on coming out anytime soon.

"I think Ma'am," the healer said in a low, sad voice, "That would be our answer. There doesn't seem to be anything physical about it."

"Very well," Mad stated soberly, inclining her head slightly to the healer. "I thank you."

The woman pulled the girl back to her, smoothing a hand over her hair. "There now," she spoke quietly. "Everything shall be put to rights, child. I shall see to it." Mad allowed herself to rest her weathered cheek against the top of J.J.'s head. From her, it was an extremely sentimental gesture, but at the moment, she couldn't be bothered to care. Her apprentice was of more importance that her image.

Besides, should anyone presume Mad Lewis was going soft, she could easily disillusion them of such ideas.

J. J. swallowed as the healer left, confirming what her brain had already known - even if she hadn't wanted to admit it. Her voice... it was gone, not coming back...

This thought possibly managed to upset her more than the memory of last nights events. Oh, it was true if she allowed herself to full remember there would be no comparison, but those thoughts were quickly become firmly locked in a place of her brain she couldn't reach.

And it seemed her voice was getting sucked away with it.

She allowed the old Mentor to pull her into an embrace, nodding her head along to the words, although she did not know if they were true. She trusted Miss Mad it was true, but there was a deep fear in the young girl, that now there was no way to make everything right again.